(Based
on Genesis 3:1-13, John 4:4-15)
Offered to FCUCC Gaylord – May 15, 2016 – by
Toby Jones
I suppose we’d have to be living under a rock not to
notice that water is everywhere in the news lately. Whether it’s the on-going
and horrifying crisis in Flint or the frightening water shortages in places
like California, Nevada, Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico, water – something we
used to take for granted – is now a precious and precarious commodity.
We know that when God created the world, God understood
water’s importance, which is probably why She made this planet 3/4ths water –
some for drinking, some for transportation, some for beauty and recreation,
some for silence and contemplation – and plenty for all people.
The Bible – both Old and New Testaments - are full of stories suggesting a deep
connection between God and water. As Diana Butler Bass puts it, “the interplay
between water, wellness, and spirituality was well known to our ancestors.”
(Grounded, pg. 81). Think of how many Christian holy places, from shrines and
temples to cathedrals and monasteries, are built over springs or beside wells
and rivers. And it’s not only the Christian faith that recognizes this
important connection between God and water. To Hindus, the Ganges River is the
destination of their holiest pilgrimages. Muslims, in their creation story,
depict Allah sitting upon the waters, for in Islam, the waters existed before
anything else did.
There is such power in water – spiritual power - whether
in rivers, oceans, streams, lakes, the rain that falls this time of year, or
the simple cup of water we offer to a thirsty stranger. Jesus put it this way:
“Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born
of water and the Spirit.”(John 3:5)
That brings me to my favorite water story of all – in
John 4, where Jesus has this amazing conversation with the Samaritan woman at the
well. In many ways, it tells us everything we need to know about Jesus – who he
is, what he cares about, and how he rolls.
I’m going to start by telling you everything I’ve known
about this passage historically, and then end by telling you what I only recently
learned about it that I never knew before – something that makes me even more
fond of this terrific text. Are you ready…?
First, the story tells us how Jesus was NOT one to play
by anyone else’s rules, especially those of the religious authorities of his
day. Did you know that faithful, law keeping Jews of Jesus’ day weren’t ever
supposed to enter Samaria? Samaria was a region within Israel that lied between
Galilee and Jerusalem. And the people who inhabited it were of mixed race and
mixed culture. In addition, many Samaritans still participated in some
polytheistic religious rituals. So for all these reasons, faithful, orthodox
Jews not only wouldn’t speak to Samaritans, but they wouldn’t even set foot in
Samaria! They would walk all the way around Samaria, adding as much as a half-day’s
journey rather than set foot in this unclean, pagan place.
So, as Jesus is leading his disciples from Jerusalem back
up to Galilee, he goes right through Samaria. He doesn’t deviate from his
course at all, walks right into the center of town, and sits at the well in the
town square. His disciples were shocked, dumbfounded and scared.
Here’s another note before we go further. Did you know
that in Jesus’ day, Jewish men didn’t speak or fraternize in public with women
– period. Not their wives or daughters, and definitely not strangers. And in
this passage Jesus has his longest recorded conversation with anyone in all the
gospels, and it’s with a woman – a stranger, and a Samaritan! Are you getting
my drift about Jesus being a rebel? He shocked his disciples and really shocked
this woman. A Jewish man…speaking to her…and a Rabbi no less? Jesus was way out
of bounds here!
But it gets even more amazing, as we turn to the
particulars of this woman. We already know she was a Samaritan, but as the
passage unfolds, we find out that she has been married 5 times and is now
living with a 6th man! Back then, this woman was about as low as she
could get – even in a Samaritan community. And yet, Jesus spoke with her.
Perhaps the most important thing for us to realize about
this Samaritan woman is how she felt about herself. We know she felt like a
total loser with a capital L! We know this because of a tiny detail in the
story that most people don’t even notice when they read John 4. At the end of
verse six, the line is: “It was about the 6th hour.” That means it
was 12 o’clock noon.” No big deal, right? Actually it is a HUGE deal. Guess who
went to the well to get water at noon….NOBODY. Care to guess why? Going to the
well meant carrying a heavy wooden bucket- even heavier once it was full of
water – over several miles. To do so at noon meant going in the hottest part of
the day AND a time when a good deal of water might evaporate on the way home.
Biblical scholars point out that there is only one kind of person who would
come to the well at high noon: a person who is so despised and mistreated in
her community, that she chooses to go get her water when NOBODY else would be
apt to be there.
How telling that Jesus has his longest and most
compassionate conversation with THIS Samaritan woman – not only a woman – who
Jewish men are not supposed to talk to in public; not only a Samaritan – who
Jews are forbidden to have any dealings with; but a five time marital loser who
gets verbally attacked by everyone she knows, and is a pariah, even among a
nation of pariahs! I love Jesus! I love this man!
And what does Jesus say to her? He offers her “living water,”
living water. He says, ‘if you drink the water I’m offering, you will never thirst
again.’ As Diana Butler Bass puts it, “Jesus implies that he’s not just a well;
he’s the water!” Jesus lets this woman know that if she connects herself to
him, if she taps into him, he’ll quench her thirst forever. He’s going to bless
her spiritually and in a way that lasts.
Now here’s the new thing I learned about this already
amazing passage, and I just learned it this week, reading this amazing book
called “Grounded” by Diana Butler Bass. Before too long you’ll be getting an
invitation from me to study this book with me in a book group, maybe this fall.
But back to what the author taught me this week.
Diana Butler Bass notes that this story in John 4 creates
an exact reversal of the story of the fall, going all the way back to Genesis 3
and Adam and Eve. I’d never seen it before, but Butler Bass is right – it’s
there, plain as day! In Genesis 3, we have this serpent coming to Eve and
saying that if she eats of the tree of life, the knowledge of good and evil,
her eyes will be opened and she’ll gain spiritual wisdom right. So Eve accepts
the serpent’s invitation to eat and what does she get…? She gets cursed. She
gets booted out of the garden and becomes an isolated outcast, right?
But in John 4, look what happens. Jesus invites the woman
to drink from his well of living water, and this time, instead of being cursed
and cast out, she is blessed! The woman is blessed in such a profound and
dramatic way, that she runs to tell all her friends. She leaves her empty water
bucket at the well, and in her excitement runs to the town and says, “Come and
see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ? The
Messiah?” John goes on to tell us that “many Samaritans came from the town and
believed in Jesus because of this woman’s testimony.”
What a transformation! What a blessing! You’d think no
one would believe anything on the basis of this despised woman’s testimony,
right? But that’s how the living water of Jesus works! Once she took into her heart
and spirit, it reconnected her to God, it reconnected her to herself, and it reconnected
her to her community. This Samaritan woman goes from being cursed to being
blessed, and, in so doing, she not only blesses others, but through her, the
long standing curse associated with Eve is blown to bits; it’s undone; it’s
reversed!
Jesus turns curses to blessings; that’s what the living
water of Jesus does! Jesus takes old, worn out, damaging understandings that we
have of ourselves, and sets things right. Jesus restores us to who we really
are.
So what about us? What does this John 4 story of the
woman at the well mean for us? Well, first it means that we need to realize
that we are not cursed either. We are NOT sinners in the hands of an angry God,
as Jonathan Edwards thought. We’re blessed, not cursed. Can I get an amen?
Second, we need to consider what we can we do – you and I, right here in
Gaylord – to help others understand that they’re not cursed either? How can we
help reverse that curse that so many people around us feel? Who do you know who
feels despised, cast out, and unwelcome? Who in our community is convinced that
their mistakes and past actions have cursed them forever, that they are no
longer worth anything?
Maybe it’s time that you sat down with that person at the
Gaylord town well. Don’t worry about what other people might think. That never
stopped Jesus. In fact, the more despised and cut off the person is, the bigger
the opportunity for blessing. That’s how Jesus saw it.
The people in Samaria had gotten it wrong where this
woman who had been married five times was concerned. They thought they could
cut her off, but she was a part of them. Their blessing depended on her
blessing. The Jews in Israel had gotten it all wrong too. They tried to cut
themselves off from the Samaritans. Little did the Jews know that their
blessing depended on the Samaritans being blessed right along with them. And so
it goes, all throughout human history. We ostracize, we cast out, we curse
those we view as different from us, failing to notice that we’re all one. We
have a common destiny. We drink from the same well. We’re either all going to
make it, or none of us will. That is the lesson of the water and of the well. That
is the lesson of John 4, the Samaritan woman, and the living water of Jesus.
That’s the good news of the gospel. Eden’s curse has been reversed – for ALL of
us. Amen.
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